In conventional brick laying practice, the mortar is manually spread on top of the existing course with a hand-held trowell. A hand-held brick is buttered on one end and placed on the top line of a just-thrown mortar. The brick is then aligned by bumping the brick down into the mortar. The mortar is then cleaned off and the joints finished off as required. This method suffers from the disadvantage that mortar is handled twice, once from a barrow to a mortar board and then from the mortar board to a hand-deposited mortar line. The physical effort required to hold the loaded mortar board with one hand whilst depositing mortar with the other is considerable. Extrusion of excess mortar causes high loss and tends to dirty exposed surfaces of bricks and requires recycling. Furthermore, mortar has to be buttered on an end of each brick before laying. This situation demands that the bricks are in close proximity to mortar storage for application of mortar and mortared bricks are then carried to the mortar line for laying.
Prior devices and equipment for laying mortar on brick wall courses have been proposed. One such device is described in United Kingdom patent No. 693,274 of Clark which discloses a box-like mortar spreader with a carriage frame on wheels running on guide rails -the slidable floor is suspended from the frame and attached to and projecting down from the floor is an inclined screeder which pushes mortar along the wall to form a mortar layer. Special seals are required because of spillage and repointing is required. U.S. Pat. No. 1,594,775 of Greslen is a mortar spreader for concrete block walls having a large central cavity which the device masks by an inverted V-wall in a large hopper with two mortar-cutting slides to obtain correct thickness of mortar for a course. The sliding mechanisms are submerged in mortar causing sticking so scraping fingers are used. Another mortar course spreader for use with blocks with central cavities is that of U.S. Pat. No. 1,789,902 of Ainslie wherein a large hopper has a bottom opening feeding a spreading edge and runs on rollers and a central baffle plate covers central brick cavities. A trowel is used to level laid mortar and to fill end joints. U.K. patent 1,251,820 of Eurofina et al discloses a mortar sliding hopper/spreader for interlocking cavity bricks of H-section, the hopper is filled with mortar while on the wall and has an inverted, cavity-covering V-shaped baffle. A separate compressing/aligning tool is used. German patent 2,719,777 of Best discloses a sliding hopper with a manually-operated, rotor with fingers to break up and dispense mortar onto the top of a brick line. Mortar is not prevented from dropping into brick cavities. U.K. patent 347,093 of Kavanagh discloses a mortar spreader with heavyweight wheeled hopper movable between two heavy guiding straight edge flange plates pre-fixed to the wall by plugs inserted into courses. A screed gauge is used to scrape the laid mortar to the required level. Another mortar course hopper spreader is disclosed in U.K. patent 602,084 of Laing, a hopper has a level bottom with a transverse slot, runners lift the hopper above brick level and are skirted to lap brickwork sides; mortar is not laid for whole brick width; a central inverted V-shaped baffle is used to prevent mortar falling down a central cavity, no perpend tool is used. A mechanical, heavy-duty mortar spreader is disclosed in British patent 973,446 of Sapat; the hopper bottom opening has three adjustable plates to govern spreading and is supported on a separate carriage with rollers for suspension on a rail; cams and a hand turned crank jolt mortar from the hopper--jolting is an important feature of Sapat. A box-like mortar spreader is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,764,22 of Orthman wherein the rectangular box has front and rear gates for back and front wall bottom openings, mortar scrapers are used and the bottom of the box is a removable tray and a spring-loaded gate covers the front wall opening when the tray is removed. A hand operated agitator handle is used to cover bricks and a perpend crack with mortar. A brick cavity is masked with a plate.